


walk slow and low on a tightrope

by chickenfree



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, Introspection, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-16
Updated: 2021-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-25 01:40:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30081525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chickenfree/pseuds/chickenfree
Summary: “I’m sorry I said you were messy,” he says.Phil turns to him with a gummy worm sticking out of his teeth like he’s some kind of huge bird.
Relationships: Dan Howell/Phil Lester
Comments: 27
Kudos: 106





	walk slow and low on a tightrope

They’re not perfect.

_They’re not perfect, they’re not perfect._

It turns into a strange little mantra in his head. 

They’re not perfect, he has to tell himself, when Phil’s chattering on the phone like this is really the best part of his day.

Sometimes it’s when Phil’s dragged Dan back to his parent’s house just to get some fucking breathing room away from their flat, and Dan’s crammed into the corner of the sofa where he’s safely boxed in and his little posh boy act feels like it’s held together with something other than cheap cellotape, and Phil’s sprawled across the rest of the sofa, bickering loudly with his brother about which of them left a beer bottle in the backyard five years ago only to get cut through with their mum hollering that obviously it was Phil, the little shit, and Phil’s stammering and blushing and insisting that he wouldn’t even do that because –

Dan finds himself silently swivelling between the three of them, silent and worried like a weird anxious dog.

They’re not perfect, he realizes, somewhere in the cacophony. Except maybe it’s true, this time. He’ll have to check with Phil later. 

Only – Phil’s laughing at his brother’s crowing and it doesn’t even sound hollow, it sounds like he’s genuinely delighted, and Kath’s rolling her eyes but still plonking down a plate of misshapen biscuits. 

Dan zones out. His heart’s jackrabbiting the way it does, and he just – he can’t read this situation. He’s gotten sort of used to stepping between Phil and the things that scare him, leading the way a little bit and talking enough that Phil doesn’t have to if he’s not up to it. 

Here, though – it’s not like that. He doesn’t think. Maybe it’s all a front and Phil’s got the same hollow feeling in his chest that Dan gets. Maybe. He’s never really sure, and he can’t figure out how to ask, and Phil never says anything about it. He never goes a bit sideways like he does elsewhere, and anyways Dan doesn’t want to get between him and his parents, doesn’t want to ruin this thing if it’s ruinable, so –

“You’ve seen him be messy,” Martyn’s saying, to someone. Oh. To Dan, maybe.

His heart drops into his stomach. Maybe that’s dramatic, but – it feels fucking dramatic, the way every hair on his arms raises, and his pulse is stumbling around.

He doesn’t want – he doesn’t want to be the one saying mean things about Phil just because other people think they can get away with it. Phil’s not that messy, anyways, just – just like, mildly tornado-esque. He tries his best, though, so it shouldn’t matter, really.

Martyn’s still staring at him. He’s like – patient. Like when teachers would call on Dan, early in the school year, and they’d think that if they just waited a bit then he would come up with a coherent answer. Before they discovered that actually he never has anything good to say.

“Yeah,” he mumbles, finally. That’s – that’s vague enough. Phil can’t be mad at him for it. Or, maybe he can, which would be fair since it’s not really nice of Dan to agree with Martyn’s needling in the first place, but at least Dan’s not telling him that Phil lost the keys yesterday and found them in the fridge, even if he did. Martyn doesn’t need to know that. 

He reaches out, anyways, pokes his pinky into Phil’s leg in apology.

Phil’s hand covers his, soft and warm and automatic like it’s nothing. Dan files it into his careful little records of each reaction he gets. He thinks Phil changes the subject, but he never figures out what to.

\--

He does ask, later. Phil’s pottering around their kitchen, getting random bags of snacks out of the places that he’s hidden them, which – Dan’s still trying to understand who they’re hidden from. He doesn’t even have a chance to find them before Phil’s wolfed them down, and hiding them doesn’t seem to stop Phil from eating them himself. 

“I’m sorry I said you were messy,” he says.

Phil turns to him with a gummy worm sticking out of his teeth like he’s some kind of huge bird.

He chews with a look on his face like he’s going to take his fucking time with it. His eyebrows pull together. Dan’s too tired to even really cringe away, even though Phil looks like he could be proper annoyed. 

His head stumbles, sleepy and bewildered. Phil talks to him, usually, if something’s wrong, but it’s like – it takes a while before he’ll say that he’s frustrated, and Dan’s struggling to grasp the situation with his family, and he didn’t think Phil was that angry, but now that he’s said it, maybe he is, maybe it’s worse than Dan thought, and maybe it was a sore point, but –

“When?” 

“What?”

“Did you say that yesterday?”

Dan blinks. “No, with your brother?”

“You said I was messy?”

He considers it. “Well. He said you were messy? And I said you were, a bit? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be mean.”

Phil pops another gummy worm in his mouth.

“I didn’t mean to pick on you,” Dan says. His voice sounds – so fucking tired, so small and nearly hoarse. He loves the Lesters, but it’s like he gets a hangover just from being at that house for too long with them, dizzy from trying to figure out how to act. “I just – I just didn’t want to make a big deal of it in front of your brother, since I know he likes to do that, and it’s not a big deal, but like if it is a big deal then you can say something? Or I can say something. Or, I mean, you don’t have to talk to them. But you can, it’s just – you don’t have to?”

“I am messy,” Phil says. 

“You’re not that messy.”

“I put a sock in the toaster.”

It’s true, but – it’s not like Phil’s trying to do things like that. Dan doesn’t think, anyways. He’s just a bit odd, but he shouldn’t have to worry about it. 

“You’re a little bit weird, but it’s not a _problem.”_

Someone – oh, Phil, whatever – tries to shove a gummy worm into his mouth. Dan doesn’t actually want one, but he obediently opens his mouth anyways. Maybe he’s just meant to shut up.

“It’s fine,” Phil says. It doesn’t seem like he’s lying. “They’re just teasing.”

\--

“What,” he says, “is that fucking screeching sound?”

“Harmonica.”

“Sounds like shit,” he blurts. If he was in any other mood maybe it would’ve been another sentence, something more coherent. _A cat going through a pulverizer,_ or whatever. Something that sounds a little more like a joke.

Phil lets out another evil beep noise, sharp and loud. Dan jumps. He finally looks up, trying to school his face into something that isn’t just open frustration and panic, tries to soften it somehow.

“Are you a clown?” he says, too loud.

Sometimes – sometimes he wonders if it would be better if he were just mute. Not that he can’t cause havoc with just his body, but. It seems like maybe taking away one method would be better for everyone.

Phil makes an awful noise that sounds like he just yelled YEAH into a harmonica. He laughs when Dan’s eyes widen, comes over and taps a hand on Dan’s head like he’s won some sort of reward, and then leaves back to the lounge, horrible beeping noises trailing behind him.

\--

“You should call your mum,” Phil says. Dan hums.

“You should call your mum,” he says again, an hour later, when Dan’s done literally everything else on earth except for calling his mum. Dan groans, shoving his laptop onto the floor and rolling the other way until he can grab his phone from its hiding spot on the side table. 

_Skype?_ he texts.

He goes back to – staring blankly at a video compilation of goats eating hats. If he taps his keyboard once in a while, it sort of looks like he’s editing. He thinks. Maybe not. Phil hasn’t said anything, anyways, so Dan’s still hoping that that’s true.

The video ends. He clicks another one.

“Are you gonna call her?” Phil presses, when he’s halfway through a third.

“Skype,” he says.

“You could just call. Since she’s not good with Skype?”

Dan shrugs, wiggling against the rug. “She said she likes to see you.”

Phil brightens more than a little. “Does she?”

“Everyone likes seeing you,” Dan says, quieter. Phil flashes him a smile and goes back to whatever productive thing he’s doing. 

She takes ages to reply. Finally they agree to log on in ten minutes.

He fiddles with his account for a minute, looking for buttons that have moved since he last used it. It all feels – weirdly foreign, now. Like it’s not his native habitat.

He forgets until the last minute that he’s still lying on the floor, has to dive to close his random tabs and hop up to the sofa, settle the laptop on the coffee table like a proper person.

“Oh!” his mum says, when she manages to get into the call. 

He smiles. She always sounds surprised to see them, even when they have a set time. 

“Hi, mum,” he says. 

“Hi!” Phil chirps, waving goofily. 

“Well, what’s wrong then?”

“Nothing’s wrong, mum.”

“No mice under the fridge?”

“No?”

Phil’s looking as quizzical as Dan feels when Dan glances at his expression on the screen.

“You haven’t set the house on fire?”

“No?”

“Well, that’s a surprise,” she says, blithe. “A pleasant surprise. Has your father talked to you?”

Dan blinks. “No?”

“Oh, well, alright,” she says. Fucking ominous.

“Why?”

“Never mind, he’ll tell you I suppose. Phil’s looking cheerful. Phil, has he really not set the kitchen on fire recently? Because you know you don’t have to put up with all that.”

Phil laughs at that, giving her that bright lopsided smile, tongue poking through his teeth and everything. Dan tries to mimic it. For once – for once watching Phil laugh at something doesn’t help, barely melts his face out of the frozen grimace.

“No, he’s alright,” Phil’s saying. “We made pancakes the other night. Pretty good. Didn’t burn them.”

“Pancakes? For dinner?”

“Yeah!”

Phil seems delighted, even though Dan’s pretty sure he knows that he’s only causing trouble.

“Daniel,” she starts. It’s like – fake stern, goofy and played up in front of his annoying friend, but – the disappointment is real. “You know how to make all sorts of things. Remember the soup?”

“Yes,” he mumbles, even though she’ll carry on regardless of what he says. He reaches down, pulling at a bauble on his sock.

“Right, well,” she says. “Phil’s a growing boy, you ought to feed him better.”

He nods. It’s fucking late. There’s no point in trying to say that Phil wanted the pancakes, that it wasn’t even Dan’s idea to cop out of making spaghetti. Even less point in saying that he never did figure out how to make anything other than spaghetti. Or that actually he doesn’t remember the soup that she showed him once in Year 7, what with that being about a million years ago now.

The rest of the conversation goes by rote. He says something about how the weather is fine. Phil’s fine. Their building is fine. Manchester is fine. Yes, it’s fine even though it’s far from home. Phil chatters with her for a bit, cracking some jokes about how he’s befriending the neighborhood squirrels, which she seems to think is funny. Dan tries to contribute, but – her face falls into that familiar consternation when he talks, so mostly he doesn’t. Phil’s funny, and nice, and he seems up for carrying the conversation for now, so whatever.

Phil starts to beg off and say that he’s going to brush his teeth before bed, even though it’s ages before they’ll actually go to sleep, and he’ll probably just fuck around in his room and play video games. 

“I’ve gotta go too,” Dan says, too abrupt. “Going to bed.”

“So early for you?”

He grits his teeth. When he was at home he’d get reamed out every morning just for using the bathroom at this hour. Now it’s like it’s unimaginable that he’d go to bed so early, and she’s looking at him suspiciously like he’s a board game that’s missing several pieces, only you won’t find out until you’re halfway into a game and then everyone’s extra upset about it.

“Yep,” he says, already reaching to hang up the call. “Bye mum, love you.”

Phil’s already checked out and started wandering by the time he’s hit End Call. Dan slumps down the sofa and waits. He doesn’t know what for. He stares at the wall, mostly, like that’ll do something.

Phil finally reemerges, all soft pajama pants and an old t-shirt, hair mussed like he was messing with it in front of the mirror and then gave up.

“Hi,” Dan says. “Thanks.”

“F’what?”

Dan shrugs. “Talking to people’s hard.”

“Your mum’s pretty funny,” Phil says. He looks tired, up close, but – that’s fair. Talking to each other’s families is so stressful.

“Bed, then?”

“Please.”

\--

Phil’s petting his hair. It’s gone curly, tangling around his fingers even when Dan tries to shift away.

He tries again, anyways. Phil’s hand just follows.

He thinks this used to be soothing. It’s sort of hard to imagine, with how his skin prickles every time Phil’s fingertips move. Phil’s digging around in the bag of crisps that he brought to the bed as an offering earlier, after the soup didn’t work and the biscuit didn’t work (and then got eaten, but not by Dan). The crackling rattles Dan’s nerves, too.

It’s all just – so fucking stupid. There’s no reason for him to act like this. Everything was fine yesterday. If he just got up –

Phil must hear the little frustrated sound that he makes. The crisps bag crinkles again, and his weight shifts like he must be sitting up, hovering over Dan the way he does when he’s like this.

“Hi,” Dan mumbles.

“Hi, bub.” 

Dan wiggles a bit, tugging the blanket closer and shifting. Phil hums. 

“You should call your mum,” he says, soft. “She’d – sometimes talking to my mum works?”

Dan churns over it. He’s fucking – he’s _seen_ the way Phil calms down after he’s talked to his mum, how his frenzied energy settles after she’s coddled him a bit and told him what he ought to do. 

“Don’t wanna.”

Phil sighs. “That thing you sent –”

Dan cringes. _Don’t isolate yourself,_ it had said. _Remind me,_ he’d said, _remind me about this._

Dan of two days ago was such a condescending little bitch.

It’s just – maybe he’s being stupid. Maybe Dan of two days ago was right, and this one is wrong. Maybe he’s being stupid and irrational and cranky and all the other things, but – he doesn’t think that showing it to his mum makes it any better. He doesn’t think that watching the ghost of every shouting match they’ve ever had walk by will make today any easier.

“Whatever,” he says, too fast and too much.

Phil’s quiet for a minute. The blanket shifts like he’s fiddling with it. “Alright.”

“Fine.”

“Great,” Phil says, nonsensical. He flops down next to Dan again. He takes his phone out for a bit, taps at it for a bit, puts it down again. 

“You wanna call my mum?” Phil offers. “I’m bored.”

Dan considers it. She’s always nice to him. Mostly it’s because he winds himself up in string until nothing loud or weird or annoying can get out, pins himself into the corner of the sofa or the corner of the kitchen or the corner of Phil’s room and barely talks the entire time. It’s a lot of effort. 

But – he’s quiet anyways, today. Maybe it would make Phil less irritated with him, if he had someone else to talk to.

“Yeah,” he finds himself saying, “sure.”

Phil pets his head once last time, and then he’s dialing. She picks up right away, like – what? Like some kind of freak who just picks up phone calls without scheduling them? He’ll never understand that.

“Well hello, I was just thinking of you,” Kath’s tinny phone voice says.

“Hi mum.”

“Hi Mrs. Lester,” Dan says.

“Oh, we’ve got the whole team here.”

“We have, yeah.”

There’s a beat after Phil says it, like he’s waiting for Dan to add something. He doesn’t know what to say, though. Sorry? Sorry for interrupting? Sorry but I needed to pawn your son off because even though I love him, he sure does talk a lot? None of it seems like something he’s supposed to say.

“I’m bored,” Phil announces.

His mum laughs, but she doesn’t say much. 

“I’m boring,” Dan blurts. It’s – not the sort of thing he’s meant to say. Fucking whiny. Fucking childish and sad and stupid.

“How are you, Dan?” is what Kath finally lands on, skipping over all the rest of it.

“Um. Like – really tired.”

“Been a long week, hasn’t it?”

“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, it has.” He doesn’t really know why he’s talking to her rather than Phil talking to his own mum. Phil’s settled back, though, like – like the problem was just that Dan is too much responsibility for him to handle on his own. Dan gets that. He feels like too much responsibility for himself to handle a lot of the time.

He’s broken out of his head by Phil’s hands, back again, gently touching like he just needs to know that Dan hasn’t evaporated. He’s so awkward a lot of the time, but he fucking tries for Dan’s sake, tries so hard to be soothing and steady. His hands sort of stutter on their path, but something settles in Dan’s head when focuses on that. Phil – like, likes him. As inane as that is to think. 

He snaps back in to realize that there’s been a lull in the conversation. Phil’s quiet, and Kath’s up to something, making quiet little noises that Dan can’t place on the other end, like she’s put them on speaker while she does something around the house.

Phil must get it from her, he thinks. Not like he’s not talkative, but sometimes – he has that way of just doing things without turning it into a ruckus. He does the dishes without nearly tossing them, and does the laundry on the same day every week. He doesn’t even snap when Dan crowds into their too-small kitchen while he’s trying to move the laundry around, doesn’t shout at him when their clothes get mixed up. Dan doesn’t really get it. It’s like it’s no trouble to him.

“Sorry,” Dan mutters, when he remembers that it’s still quiet.

“Oh, no mind,” Kath says. “I’m beating the shit out of this dough.”

“Mum!”

She laughs, but only for a minute before she falls quiet again. “Y’alright, child? Eh. Children? No.”

“Chile-dren,” Phil offers.

“No, no.”

“What’d you say when Mar and I were little?” he says. “There’s multiple of us.” Dan shifts closer, trying not to ruffle the blanket too much.

“When –? Oh, I only called you child.”

“Since when?”

“Since forever. You were a child, your brother – I don’t know. Love, maybe. That wasn’t a child. Do you remember? Well, you wouldn’t, but he popped out and about two days later started telling me about maths. That wasn’t – love, yes. A child? I don’t know.”

“A tiny capitalist?” Dan tries. He feels Phil’s chest move when he laughs.

“Aye. Aye, like a small – like a compact little businessman. Very spooky. Well not in the way that Phil was spooky. Not like a small witch that lives in your house. But – yeah, fairly spooky.”

If Dan was less tired maybe he’d feel protective over Phil. He half does, over the little version that apparently caused so much havoc that he exhausted all of his terrible options and grew up sort of normal, but – Phil’s still laughing, deep and relaxed like he does when he’s up too late and veering towards sleep. It’s not even late, really, but Dan knows he’s been hovering and fussing more than he’s been resting lately.

Kath’s laughing, too, thunking the dough around. It’s not like – it’s not disappointment in her voice when she says those things, even if it sounds like a nightmare situation. She always seems sort of delighted that such strange children appeared in her house one day.

He thinks – he remembers the expression on her face when he showed up on their doorstep, skinny and wide eyed and fairly stupid. She’d gaped at him a bit, but it was like – curiosity. Confusion, and a strange sort of joy even though he was a complete stranger, and even though Phil didn’t have much patience for explaining why this gangly thing was standing in their house.

She’s never really shifted, he thinks. Every time they call she just wants to know what they’re doing, keeps pressing gently for information in the same way Phil does when he just wants to live vicariously through some boring story about a grocery store.

Dan’s hit that half-awake state where he’s sort of loopy. It’s like all the emotions show up at once, leaving him giggly and squirmy and sore and weird all at the same time. He lets himself fall into it, laughing along with Phil and his mum. Phil gets brave and pulls him closer, curling around him. It feels like it’ll all crumple into exhaustion in a minute, but – he’s good. He’s good for now, laughing with these two over nonsense.

\--

“What did you fucking say?”

Dan giggles, shrieking and squirming away from where Phil’s stubbornly trying to tickle him. “Nothing! Nothing. Leave it.”

“No! What did you fucking say about me?”

“I said –” he starts, taking a deep breath and trying to steady his voice when Phil takes his hands away, with a smug look like he knows he’s gotten what he wanted, “– that you’re a meanie.”

“You did not,” Phil says, already shoving his hand back in the direction of Dan’s middle. Dan shrieks again. The controller’s already gotten launched in some unspecified direction. His chest hurts from laughing so hard.

“I did!”

“What else did you say!”

“I said. I said you’re – a filthy evil – bitch ass snake – that wears glasses taped up in the middle – because you’re a fucking _nerd.”_

He stares Phil in the eyes as he says it. Phil’s forehead is all squished up like he’s thinking about sulking, but his smile keeps growing every time Dan adds another word, until Dan’s far too loud and Phil’s just beaming at him. 

“Thank you,” Phil huffs. “And _why_ would a snake wear glasses.”

“Because you’re a nerd!”

“No but – no. No, listen. Snake optometrists? Is it – is a snake, who’s an optometrist? Or a veterinarian who’s only worried about snake eyeballs?”

Dan honks another absurd laugh. Phil’s staring at the ceiling while he thinks about snake optometrists and doesn’t seem to care about tickling him anymore, so he shoves himself up and goes off to find the damn controller.

\--

There’s good days. There’s a lot of good days. Even when they’re busy and running around and just this side of exhausted all the time, Dan finds himself tucking his legs into Phil’s side in the evening and wondering if maybe he’s stolen someone else’s life. Maybe there’s someone out there that was meant to have this instead of him, but – finder’s keepers, really. He’s not giving it back.

\--

There’s bad days, too. Days where he gets a little bit too brave, a little drunk on power after Phil laughs at his tantrum about a sock in the refrigerator, and Kath tells him he’s a nice boy even though she knows that sometimes he isn’t. 

He’s bouncing around all morning, answering things and goofing off and getting nice messages from people who think he’s funny, people who think he deserves this world. 

It’s like – sometimes he picks up so much steam that when he trips, he falls harder than he ever has. He’s touched heaven and now he can’t even think for a moment about going back to _that,_ that – that other universe that he can barely stand to think about. 

He picks one to respond to, one that’s milder than the others. He can feel that his fingers are moving too fast, that he’s rattling as he types it.

He says his bit, and then bolts for a minute, shutting the tab and fucking off somewhere else. It’s just – he can’t resist the urge to find out if it’s stopped or not. If that did anything, or – oh. No. No, they’re quick, and now he’s got messages from people asking too many questions, or not asking questions at all because they’re too busy telling him how stupid he is. How he doesn’t deserve this, how he’s holding Phil back, how he isn’t enough. 

Phil finally finds him, still standing in the middle of the kitchen, eyes squeezed shut.

Dan hears his quiet footsteps coming closer, and then a pause, like Phil’s just watching him for a minute. 

“Sorry,” he whispers.

Phil doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t say Dan can’t be sorry. That’s fine. It’s Dan’s fault for stirring the pot, for pushing farther than he can handle just because he was feeling smug and too big to hurt. 

Phil’s hands are gentle, though, pulling him in until Dan’s got his face tucked into his neck, leaning into him and trying not to squirm when Phil’s hand lands on his back.

“Love you,” Phil says, quiet. Dan can only nod against his skin and squeeze him tighter.

\--

He asks. Eventually. Months later, if he’s honest. Only after – more than a month, somehow, of Phil watching him with careful eyes, watching while Dan pulls back and pulls inward and just – stops talking, mostly. 

Phil gets brave enough to ask if they’re breaking up, at one point. If Dan wants to just go home. Dan manages to say no, manages to say that it’s not like that. Unless Phil wants it to be like that. 

He doesn’t, at least. Dan makes a point of trying to talk to him more, even when it feels like the building is going to tumble down every time he opens his mouth. 

“Hey,” Phil says, poking his head into Dan’s room. 

“Hey.”

“Are you sleeping now?”

“Gonna try.”

“Alright,” Phil says, shuffling to his side of the bed. Dan flops around like a dying fish until he can squeeze in. 

“Am I, like.”

He doesn’t actually know how to finish the sentence, so he doesn’t. Phil’s staring at him when he finally looks over again.

“Are you… like. Are you gay?” Phil prompts. 

Dan snorts. “No, not that. Good question, though. Guess we haven’t fucked enough.”

Phil gives him a smile at that, at least, even though Dan thinks it’s too close to the truth right now. “Are you what, then?”

Dan scrunches his face up, squinting like he doesn’t really want to see Phil’s expression. 

“Am I mean?”

“What?”

“Like – a dickhead?”

“I know what mean is,” Phil scolds. Dan rolls his eyes. Phil’s face has softened into a quizzical smile when he looks again. “Why’re you worried about that?”

That’s not – exactly a denial. Not even close to a denial, really. “Can you just tell me?”

“I think you’re funny.”

“Well, that’s not a no.”

Phil shrugs. He pulls a face, something that looks like _the specifics don’t matter._ Dan’s heart thunks out of rhythm.

He turns his face towards his duvet, fussing at a button that’s starting to come loose. “Okay,” he says, quiet. 

“Why’re you worried about it?” Phil asks, again.

He sounds sincere, like he really doesn’t get it.

“I don’t want to be like that. I mean – like, it’s funny with other people, whatever, but you have to live with me, and – I – you’re already putting up with so much, and I just – I just feel every kind of shitty all the time, and I’m too tired to stop, but then you end up dealing with it, and I don’t want to be my mum, and I don’t want to pick on you, but it’s so – it’s so. Fuck. Y’know?”

Phil’s staring at him, all big doe eyes. God, Dan wants to keep him around. He can’t even – fuck, if he’d told himself at seventeen that he’d be sitting in bed with this man, worrying that he takes him too much for granted – fuck, oh, god. That thought rattles him. 

“Hey,” Phil says, breaking Dan out of the millionth spiral. “You think you’re being a dick to me?”

“I am.”

“When?”

It’s Dan’s turn to stare. “Like – I dunno. Like when you put the forks in the wrong drawer? I had a whole strop, didn’t I?”

Phil laughs. Dan absolutely does not get it, but it feels like a good sign, at least. 

“You never think I’m being a dickhead?” Phil says, once he’s calmed down from whatever that was. “Like, I put them there.”

“I mean, you _are.”_

“Right. So it’s like –”

“But I don’t want – that’s not a reason for me to be a dickhead back? Like, you’re trying. You’re nice. I just – fuck.”

“You just fuck?”

Dan pulls a snotty face. It’s not really helping his nerves, that they’re just bickering even when he’s trying to politely ask whether he’s a dickhead or not. “Fine,” he says, quieter. “We don’t have to talk about it.”

“No, come on. Can you explain it more?”

“It’s like –” he pauses again. He tries rifling through the _why_ of it all, tries to sort out why it feels so catastrophic sometimes. “I just – I don’t know what’s too far? Like, your mum – your family – you all whine about each other, but it’s fine? Like, it’s funny? I’m – I dunno.”

“Your mum’s not really like that,” Phil fills in. He looks like – like he gets it, finally.

“Yeah.”

“Okay.”

“I don’t want to be like that with you.”

Phil nods, looking elsewhere for a minute while he thinks. Dan’s suddenly a little overwhelmed with how Phil tries to understand these things, even when it’s – more than Dan himself can understand, really. 

Phil taps on the duvet over Dan’s hip when he’s ready again. “The thing is that I would tell you?”

“You don’t tell other people, though. You know that.”

“Yeah, I’ve met me,” Phil huffs. He cracks a smile when Dan lets out a surprised laugh. “But you’re not other people?”

“Right, but –”

“Like, I’d tackle you, if you were too annoying, right. I can bite you or kick your foot or something. I wouldn’t tackle Jack Jacksgap, so. And I wouldn’t bite him either. Probably.”

Dan really laughs at that. It’s too loud for the hour, but – Phil smiles again, shy and sweet, like he doesn’t know what’s so funny but he just likes that Dan’s listening. 

“I’d like to see you try that, actually,” Dan says. “It would liven up Vidcon, wouldn’t it?”

“No thank you. Sports boys. Anyways.”

“Anyways,” Dan says, nonsensical.

“Can we be done talking about our feelings? Or can I lay here and you can drop Swedish fish into my open mouth while you talk? I need help if this is going to keep going.” 

Dan finds himself laughing again. “Alright, we’re done. I’ll have a candy robot running by the morning for you.”

\--

Phil’s exhausted.

He knows that, logically. He can see the way he’s sort of slow-motion crumpling, every time there’s another fucking task. It’s gotten to the point where Dan will say something sappy and all he gets back is a strained-looking smile, the type that would’ve sent him into a spiral a few years ago, before he knew that Phil just – gets like this, sometimes. So busy running around and putting out fires that everything else is just perfunctory, and maybe his mind’s not thrumming with anxiety for a minute, but he’s barely able to keep his eyes open, much less understand what Dan’s saying half the time. 

Dan tries to take care of the dishes or the laundry, but it all feels a bit precarious.

He feels awful about the ruckus as soon as it happens.

“PHILIP,” he finds himself hollering, bolting through their flat. 

Phil’s pale little face pops out of his room a second later. “Uh?”

“Philip,” Dan repeats.

“Yeah?”

“You’ve put – you’ve put your underwear in the fucking _oven,_ mate,” he says. “Like, in the oven. The _cooking_ oven.” He tries to be – sort of calm, but his voice keeps rising, louder and higher with every word.

“Oh.”

_”Oh?” ___

__“It’s not meant to be there.”_ _

__“I know,” he wails, “that your _UNDERPANTS_ are not _MEANT_ to be in the _OVEN, PHIL LESTER.”__ _

__Phil’s face is cracking into a smile. It’s sort of sheepish, maybe, if Dan squints. If he squints really hard. Which he is, because the smoke is still stinging his eyes a little bit. Not sheepish enough, though, for an idiot that’s just left underwear in the oven like some sort of – some sort of absolute chaos goblin._ _

__“Why the _fuck_ are you smiling, mate?” he hisses, when Phil doesn’t say anything, just stands there grinning at him._ _

__Phil’s face twists into something properly sheepish, now, like he’s only just remembered. “Sorry,” he says, quiet and sort of shy. “You’re cute.”_ _

___”Cute?”_ _ _

__“Yeah. Like,” Phil waves a vague hand, stepping closer. “All – well. When you’re.”_ _

__“When I’m angry that you almost burned down our building?” Dan says. Mostly shrieks. _Says_ doesn’t really capture it that well._ _

__Phil’s grinning again, wide-eyed now._ _

__“Alright, alright,” he says, with a little edge of scolding that has Dan’s head bowing in a millisecond, chastened for being so loud._ _

__“Sorry,” Dan mumbles._ _

__“You’re a nut.”_ _

___”You’re_ a fucking nut, mate. You are the king pistachio, bitch. I cannot believe you for one fucking minute. You think – I almost died of asthma. Like, actually, I think –”_ _

__“Danny.”_ _

__“Sorry.”_ _

__Phil steps closer, again, catching Dan’s wrist in his cold hand. “Sorry I burnt the underpants.”_ _

__“I turned the oven on,” Dan mutters. Neither of them is exactly in the right._ _

__“Yeah,” Phil says. “That’s a great point.”_ _

__“No – wait, fuck you. Wait –” Dan starts, “why are you smiling? You – goblin fuck, I – _stop_ laughing. What the hell do you think is so funny? Your little escapade?”_ _

__Phil’s proper giggling, almost as teary-eyed as Dan feels. “I can’t –”_ _

__“Explain yourself,” Dan hisses._ _

__“Well stop talking then! You’re cute like this.”_ _

__“Like this? Angry? Is this a kink for you?”_ _

__“No,” Phil says. “No, like – when you’re happy.”_ _

__“I’m _not_ happy. I almost died.”_ _

__“You did not. No, I mean when you’re…”_ _

__“Spit it out!”_ _

__Phil kicks at his foot, baring his teeth for a second like he’s legitimately going to bite Dan. “When you’re all, like, full of vinegar.”_ _

__“What? That isn’t a saying, mate. Do you think that’s a saying?”_ _

__“I don’t care.”_ _

__“Jesus.”_ _

__“I like it,” Phil says, softer. “It means you’re good.”_ _

__Dan’s rarely speechless for more than a second, but god, Phil can get him there. “Uh.”_ _

__“It – I hate when you’re quiet,” Phil says, just a notch bolder. “Like, when you’re quiet it means you’re sad, and it’s not – I don’t mind, but, I just wish it wouldn’t hurt you so much? But if you’re loud, you’re good. You’re always happier when you’re loud.”_ _

__Dan stumbles. Not in a bad way, just in a – like someone’s knocked his feet out from under him._ _

__“That’s weird,” he mutters, awkwardly wrinkling his nose as if Phil’s said something gross. There’s no real heat behind it._ _

__Phil grins. Maybe Dan would’ve thrown him off the case with that years ago, but not now. “It just means you’re happy, I think.”_ _

__He’s not, like, wrong, exactly. Dan’s just a little breathless with the idea that he can see that so easily. No one’s ever – looked at it as anything other than a problem. Maybe sometimes like some weird skill that he’s only allowed to let out when he’s on stage, like his personality is some kind of weird circus bear._ _

__“It’s like when you slap me because you’ve won at Mario and you forget your hands are like that,” he says, mostly to turn the conversation around for a minute while he recovers his bearings._ _

__“Yeah,” Phil says. “Yeah, exactly like when I do violence.”_ _

__Dan snorts. “Weirdo. Anyways, do you want cereal? Would love to nutrify you, but the oven is full of burnt plastic.”_ _

__\--_ _

__It turns into – almost a science experiment. A weird, private one, without any grant funding, and no control group, but – an experiment nonetheless, if you ask Dan._ _

__There’s still some days where Phil’s head is hurting too much to put up with Dan’s shit, where Dan squawks and he squints instead of smiling. Usually he’ll tap his fingers and mutter a barely sensical “shut your hell up” after ten seconds. Dan huffs and puffs and goes to make him tea, tries to turn his energy into something useful.  
He starts to figure it out, though, slowly but surely. Mostly on accident, at first. He’ll flail around about something for a minute because he’s too tired to stop himself, and Phil will laugh, and he’ll remember – oh. Oh, right, he can do that. That’s allowed now._ _

__He never quite learns to do it on purpose, but – he starts to piece together that there’s moments when Phil’s looking for it, when Phil needs him to act silly before he’ll relax._ _

__It starts with a morning where he’s finally out of bed, limbs just a little lighter than they have been. Phil’s been fussing and hovering for days, and Dan knows he’s probably worried out of his mind._ _

__“Phil,” he squawks, as soon as he’s in the kitchen, “every cupboard? Every cupboard? All the cupboards? You’ve got to have _all_ the cupboards open?”_ _

__Sure enough, Phil’s face pops up from behind his coffee, grinning up at Dan as he waves his hands wildly at the offending door. Dan gives him a baleful look for a second, waiting to see if Phil says anything, but he’s quiet._ _

__“What if there was a house invader who just wants our Crunchy Nut?” Dan continues, buzzing a little when Phil starts giggling. “What if – what if you wake up one day and they’ve stolen our Nutella? I have one weird day and you open our home to every passerby that wants snacks? Really, mate?”_ _

__“Really,” Phil deadpans. “Fed a squirrel your toast after you didn’t eat it yesterday.”_ _

__Dan honks a laugh. He missed this, even if it was just a few days._ _

__He shakes his head. He makes a show of getting his coffee and toast put together, makes sure Phil’s watching as he goes around and closes every single godforsaken door. Phil’s rolling his eyes by the time Dan flops down next to him, but he’s smiling anyways._ _

__“Missed you,” Phil echoes, leaning in for a kiss._ _

**Author's Note:**

> Big thank you to Puddle for betaing and helping me out with this!!
> 
> Come find me at [@chickenfreeblog](chickenfreeblog.tumblr.com) where we're discussing crimes my dog has committed.


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